How can I?" she broke out wildly. "If trusting you means
standing by whilst Adrienne-- Oh, I can't bear it. You're asking
too much of me, Max. I didn't know . . . when you asked me to trust
you . . . that it meant--_this_! . . . And there's something else,
too. Who are you? What is your real name? I don't even
know"--bitterly--"whom I've married!"

He released her suddenly, almost as though she had struck him.

"Who has been talking to you?" he demanded, thickly.

"_Then it's true_?"

Diana's hands fell to her sides and every drop of colour drained away
from her face. The question had been lying dormant in her mind ever
since the day when Olga Lermontof had first implanted it there. Now it
had sprung from her lips, dragged forth by the emotion of the moment.
_And he couldn't answer it_!

"Then it's true?" she repeated.

Errington's face set like a mask.

"That is a question you shouldn't have asked," he replied coldly.

"And one you cannot answer?"

He bent his head.

"And one I cannot answer."

Very slowly she picked up her wraps.

"Thank you," she said unsteadily. "I'll--I'll go now."

He laid his hand deliberately on the door-handle.

"No," he said. "No, you won't go. I've heard what you have to say;
now you'll listen to me. Good God, Diana!" he continued passionately.
"Do you think I'm going to stand quietly by and see our happiness
wrecked?"

"I don't see how you can prevent it," she said dully.

"I? No; I can do nothing. But you can. Diana, beloved, have faith in
me! I can't explain those things to you--not now. Some day, please
God, I shall be able to, but till that day comes--trust me!" There was
a depth of supplication and entreaty in his tone, but it left her
unmoved. She felt frozen--passionless.

"Do you mean--do you mean that Adrienne, your name, everything, is all
part of--of what you can't tell me? Part of--the shadow?"

He was silent a moment. Then he answered steadily:--

"Yes. That much I may tell you."

She put up her hand and pushed back her hair impatiently from her
forehead.

"I can't understand it . . . I can't understand it," she muttered.

"Dear, must one understand--to love? . . . Can't you have faith?"

His eyes, those blue eyes of his which could be by turns so fierce, so
unrelenting, and--did she not know it to her heart's undoing?--so
unutterably tender, besought her. But, for once, they awakened no
response. She felt cold--quite c